Healing Power of Prayer on Longevity

How the power of prayer could improve the condition of cancer sufferer.

Several cancer sufferers have reported an improvement in their condition following prayer. The use of prayer for its healing powers goes back millennial, but the first semi-scientific experiment to study its effects was performed towards the end of the 19th century by Sir Francis Galton. He wanted to find out whether prayer had any effect on the life span. At that time, people prayed regularly for the well-being of their monarch and Galton thought that the mental power of so many people might actually make monarchs live longer. When he finished his studies he was somewhat disappointed not to find any difference in longevity. He thought that the reason for this was that monarchs in the past were living a particularly stressful and dangerous life so the benefits of the prayers were wiped out.

Since then there have been other experiments into the effects of prayer. Recently, researchers asked a group of priests to pray for particular patients who were in the intensive therapy unit of a hospital. The patients had absolutely no idea that someone was praying for them and the doctors didn’t know which patient was receiving the prayer until after the trial. In the final results, the patients who had been prayed for recovered much faster than those who had not.

Some scientists dismiss these results as merely statistical mispresentation of the truth, but prayer has been scientifically studied and found to have benefits for the body. It is not only for religious individuals, but it is for everybody, a basic human need. It may help the brain to produce immune-boosting chemicals and substances to help fight cancer or to release pain-killing endorphins. Prayer is another form of meditation, but deeper and perhaps stronger.